Post by Diana Wake on May 6, 2018 12:29:32 GMT -8
Diana kathleen wake
Kathy Nolan (pseudonym) | nineteen | female bisexual |
Celestic Town | civilian | poet/artist |
Appearance
Diana is a mere 4'8” in height, with the slightly-too-slim build and wan complexion of someone who is clearly not getting enough exercise or sunlight. She is somewhat sensitive about her height, a genetic trait inherited from her grandmother on her father's side – having to constantly look up at anyone over the age of ten is vexing, and being mistaken for someone of that age even more so – and like many people with her hair colour, she catches the sun easily, so her two choices for complexion are ghostly pale or Cherubi red. She has waist-length orange hair that is almost too bright to be natural, kept straight and loose, and dark brown eyes with a slightly reddish cast to them which can make her look positively evil at sunset in particular, as they catch the lower light far too readily.
She has a long face, with a large forehead (hidden by a very neat fringe) and a sharply-pointed chin that juts out as though she's trying to impale someone on it shen she frowns, which she spends a great deal of time doing. Her facial features are the only part of Diana that betray her actual age: her thin, almost bloodless lips seem to be permanently downturned by default, and coupled with her pencil-thin eyebrows which are set at a slight inward angle, at first glance she seems to be always scowling, although this is more likely due to intense concentration. Whilst she is prone to being lost in thought, Diana does not have a “dreamy” expression that one might expect of someone who spends more time in their head than in reality.
Diana is long-sighed, and her large round-framed glasses are not a strong prescription, so the lenses are fortunately not thick enough to make her eyes seem bigger, but their size makes the rest of her face look slightly smaller than it actually is. They weren't chosen for the sake of aesthetic: she just found that not having glasses that completely covered her field of vision gave her more headaches than usual, because the strength of the lenses is so weak that she wasn't noticing the difference between her vision without the glasses and with them.
Coupled with the large, heavy noise-cancelling headphones that have become so much a part of her that she feels light-headed when she isn't wearing them, much of the severity of Diana's facial features is softened, and at first glance she often just appears to others to be a particularly sulky child. Diana is one of those people for whom first impressions are often inaccurate and quite unflattering, although she is used to dealing with people who think she is a child by now and has accepted it with a weary resignation, rather than snappiness.
Surprisingly, given her personality (see below) Diana favours casual, comfortable clothing: an off-shoulder white top (which, despite her fondness for paints and ink, is always miraculously pristine) and black shorts, with black stockings that come up to mid-thigh and knee-high black boots with thick soles that add another inch to her height. Any more than that and she'd find it difficult to walk and look ridiculous besides; dislike her height she might, but one thing Diana likes less is those who are desperate to be tall, as though those who shorter in stature are somehow inferior. A little extra height never hurt anybody...and thick soles are practical when you plan to do a lot of walking.
When out and about, whether hot or cold, she always wears a fur-lined, hooded jacket which has a plethora of pockets, both inside and out. Diana dislikes jewellery, although she has a ring from her mother that she keeps in the left breast pocket of her coat, with the right breast pocket reserved for a tiny battered notebook that she uses for notes for poetry. The other pockets are filled with scraps of paper, pencils and, for some strange reason, individually wrapped peppermint sweets.
Diana's phone is a very old and outdated model, which is always off and used for emergency calls (or calling her parents) only - she has never liked phones, an attitude she acquired from her father. She has an old-fashioned battery-powered MP3 player, finding this to be more reliable and easier to use than more modern devices...you can buy batteries anywhere, and they last for three times longer than an internal charge, which you may not be able to charge up if you're out in the middle of nowhere and can't find a plug.
Diana has a small, plain black backpack with a set of oil paints, brushes, ink pens, a small collapsible wooden easel that is always trying to fold back in upon itself and making life generally difficult, a small bottle of green ink wrapped in bubble wrap and kept in a small battered wooden box (a lesson in storage she learned the hard way after dying the inside of her first backpack green when the bottle smashed) and, of course, paper. Unfortunately her bag is not large enough for anything other than A5 paper, and Diana herself isn't strong enough to carry as much as she would like to, but there is enough room in her bag for a single pad of 50 sheets. She also has a few plastic wallets around the same size to store completed or ongoing works. Despite the amount she has crammed into it, the bag is not especially heavy and can be carried comfortably on her back, although she cannot carry it for very long in both arms.
Personality
Diana would best be described as old-fashioned, although she would prefer the term “practical” instead. Whilst she is indeed practical, she is also very old-fashioned: the benefit and curse of being raised by an elder generation. She is honest to a fault, direct and yet impeccably polite, and generally very pleasant to be around, but at the same time she is woefully inept socially and almost archaic in her language and mannerisms when compared to those in her age group.
Indeed, one of the first things that most will notice about Diana is how polite she is. She has a very precise way of speaking which would sound awkward if it didn't come so naturally to her: she rarely uses contractions or colloquialisms, and speaks with a clear respect, but there is an uncompromising undercurrent to this which says quite clearly that she expects the same in return. “Treat others how you wish to be treated” is generally how Diana operates, and if she does not receive the same, she is quick to irritate and will often politely – but firmly – excuse herself. Even though she could be considered one herself by many people because of her direct manner, Diana hates rude people almost as much as she hates liars.
But this is not to say that she is clinical or unfeeling as one might expect. Diana would find such a thing impossible, due to her empathic abilities. She has no compunctions about wearing her heart on her sleeve and expressing her emotions freely – to feel is to be human. Why should she be ashamed of this? Why should she hide it? One thing that she has been told repeatedly, by her mother and her grandfather, is that emotions are a gift, and the essence of what makes someone human: she has the gift of seeing into other people's hearts and experiencing something that few others can. This is a gift that she should share with them as well, as much as she can. Diana is very easy to read, because what you see is literally what you get: whether positive or negative, awkward or appropriate, she will always say exactly what she is feeling. Perhaps not what she is thinking – tact is important, as are manners – but emotion is who she is, and hiding who she is – lying – is not in her nature.
Although she respects other people's thoughts and feelings, Diana does not particularly care what other people think of her. At least, not to the point that she would worry about it, or compromise her own behaviour: being thought of badly upsets her as much as anyone – perhaps even slightly more where her poetry and artwork is concerned – but if she just doesn't get along with someone, or they dislike a part of her, she will not try to change that. Empath or not, she can only be who she is. These thoughts and feelings are other people's business, and not hers. Differentiating between herself and other people, and not allowing herself to be caught up in other people's thoughts or feelings, is very important to Diana. She may not be able to help being affected emotionally by others, but she can still choose to hold true to herself at the same time. It's a difficult balance that is often skewed in the face of strong emotions, but one of the guiding principles of her life. She has a very strong sense of self-identity, developed through years of isolationism, and holds true to this.
These things are immediately apparent after just a short conversation with Diana: she is focused, driven, and uncompromising. This is who she is: you can take it or leave it, but you can't change it. Some may see this as confrontational, but this is more Diana's social ineptitude showing: she hasn't spent a lot of time around others in her life, and her empathic talents mean that she can often see straight through the social niceties to see how people really feel about one another, even if she can't tell what they're thinking. Sometimes she may jump the gun a little in her interaction with others, or be taken aback that other people aren't as forthcoming as she is: she is aware that it may be inappropriate to reveal some things from a social standpoint, but she doesn't see that as wholly relevant or even important, because she has spent so little time around others, and had very supportive parents who allowed her to develop her talents in the way she saw fit...most of the time. Despite past trauma, she has had it better than most, and even if she respects people, she doesn't understand them. She often makes the mistake of believing that she does, just because she can sense emotions. To call it arrogance would be harsh, as Diana isn't malicious or even aware of it, but it certainly comes across this way at times.
Despite her confidence in her own identity, Diana does not have as much confidence in her actions: she is a cautious and reserved person; one who is used to watching rather than acting, and when the time DOES come for her to act, she will often hesitate. Making the right choice, and being as good as she can be, is important to Diana, far more so than getting something done. If it is worth doing, it is worth doing right: in poetry, you need to use the right words, or the meaning changes and the work takes on a completely different meaning. In life, if you make the wrong choice, it can have negative repercussions. Perhaps it is because she has so little control over her empathic ability, but control over every other aspect of her life is something Diana strives for with an almost frenzied desperation: everything has to be precise, the way she intends it, or it's wrong. It's very damaging perfectionism that can get her stuck in one place for a very long time: trusting her gut is never something she was any good at. A poet indeed, Diana spends more time in her thoughts than she does in reality, and by learning not to react on every emotion she feels, she has suppressed her natural instincts to the point that she ignores them – she overcompensates.
Whilst her proficiency in the arts is undeniable and prodigious, Diana's academic talents leave much to be desired. She isn't particularly worldly or knowledgeable of even the most basic things, having been home-schooled for most of her life and for dropping out of College. There was never a need for her to learn these things, so she never did – an attitude of her grandfather's, and one that she shares. Knowledge is only meaningful if you apply it, and things like maths and science have no place in the life of an artist like her. These things are useful to other people, and not things that she needs to learn herself. She isn't completely dense, but for someone so well-spoken and thoughtful, her ignorance can be surprising, as can her stubbornness in this.
Diana is also completely clueless when it comes to technology: she doesn't have a smartphone and doesn't even know how to text on the phone she does have, her father set up her MP3 player on her computer – a computer which she used a grand total of three times for about ten minutes each time, which is the extent of her usage of technology across nineteen years of life – and the only time she has ever watched television has been in classes. There was electricity in the house, but it was for powering the lights and the things needed for her father's work – the printer, telephone, and computer – more than anything else. A lot of modern appliances Diana has never even SEEN before, so she would have no idea how to use them even after being told what they were. She doesn't share her grandfather's believe that technology is useless and for the lazy – at least not completely – but she does have a general aversion to using it which borders almost on a phobia.
Diana is very good at acting like someone who is not in their late teens, but her inexperience in dealing with others, and with life in general, is very clear after a little time spent with her. She has incredible natural talent, but this remains raw and largely unfocused due to her inability to control her gifts and her isolationist way of living up to this point. She is comfortable expressing herself around people, but at the same time she is not comfortable in allowing others to really get to know her, or in getting to know them. She has a great deal to learn, but being stuck in her ways is her greatest flaw and detriment as both an artist and a person: she doesn't believe she needs to learn it, or thinks she already has. Whilst she is mature for her age, and able to take care of herself better than a lot of adults twice her age, she lacks life skills.
History
Diana was born in Jubilife City in Sinnoh, the daughter of Erik and Joyce Wake. Erik was a writer of varying success, and Joyce an art teacher at a local school, and theirs seemed like a perfect match from the day they met, when he gave a talk at an assembly at her school. They were dating within a week, and married within six months. Diana was born not long after that, and for a time they were a happy family.
However, Joyce was an empath, and Erik a man of fluctuating temperament: his writing was never as popular as he liked it to be, and he was prone to depression when things weren't going well: all the more so when he was unable to provide for his wife and child. Joyce worked long hours and, whilst she had achieved an equilibrium with her talents and could shut out unwanted emotions from others, she could still sense them, and her husband's moods often had an effect on her. Their home life deteriorated quickly and spiralled downwards, to the point that she, psychologically at least, abused him by encouraging his depressive thoughts. Why should she be working all hours of the day whilst he did nothing but look after their daughter? Wasn't this an equal partnership? She was the one who was barely keeping the family in their tiny little apartment; the roof over their head, the clothes on their backs, the food in their bellies. Maybe he should get a real job instead of crying over his broken dreams.
They divorced when Diana was three years old, with her father winning custody rights due to her mother's antisocial behaviour at the time of the divorce – empath or not, abuse was unacceptable. He moved back into the family house with his parents in Celestic Town – writing was hardly enough to buy a place, especially in his neighbourhood – taking Diana with him, although she still saw her mother at weekends, which were mostly spent playing with finger-paints and eating copious amounts of ice cream. Free from her father, Diana's mother turned her life around relatively quickly, although she never managed to win custody rights to raise her daughter herself because of the incident that led to their divorce.
Diana was raised by her grandparents Roland and Evelyn, who had been happily married for nearly sixty years and were perfectly happy with their lives, although Evelyn had issues with smoking and Roland had some very old-fashioned values. Her father spent a lot of time shut away in his old room, working on novels to try and bring in some form of income – being a writer was a difficult business and, whilst he was by no means unsuccessful, writer's block was a common ailment for him after the divorce - and she rarely saw him outside of mealtimes.
Diana's empathic abilities manifested themselves when she was seven, when her grandmother had a stroke. Diana was understandably distraught from having witnessed this, but began screaming when she felt her grandmother pass away: she had been holding her hand at the time. In the end Diana had to be sedated, and spent a week in hospital herself in an isolated ward until the cause of her distress could be identified. Every time she woke up, she would scream, or cry, or experience pain when she shouldn't have felt anything at all – what she was actually picking up on was the intense feelings of those around her, having inherited her mother's empathic capabilities. Living in a small, isolated town, her abilities would not have been apparent until that point.
Adjusting to this was difficult for Diana – for two years she was extremely sensitive to emotions. She picked up on her father's anger and frustration and disappointment at life, concern for her, and the feelings of people in the surrounding area. She would start laughing, or crying, with no reason she could identify. At times she might experience a flash of pain. Whilst this eventually quietened down, at first it was overwhelming, especially for a seven year old girl who had just lost her grandmother.
Her grandfather was a rock for her during this time. A solid, steady man in his eighties who knew that his wife's bad habits would get her killed sooner rather than later, he was sad about her death, but prepared for it, and his calm acceptance helped Diana come to terms with both that and other things in her life: a hug from him was often all it took to calm her down. Around this time, perhaps inspired by his mother's death, her father broke through his writer's block and published a book that became a bestseller, and began to spend more time with his daughter. He'd read her stories when she couldn't sleep, take her for long walks in the countryside away from other people, and began home-schooling her, taking her out of school when he realised she had her mother's abilities.
For her part, Joyce began to take a more active interest in her daughter, attempting to help her control her abilities. Unfortunately she was not successful in this regard. She concluded that Diana needed a focus for her life, the same way that art had helped her focus and overcome the difficulties she faced in that position. She hired a tutor to teach Diana to sing, and began teaching Diana herself to play the piano. Music was, after all, the most pure expression of emotion there was, and if she could channel what she felt into this, she might even be able to make a living from it.
This turned out to be a colossal mistake. Diana absolutely HATED singing lessons. Her music teacher was an elderly woman, and she had the patience of a stone...and about as much expression as one. Whether Diana did well or failed, the response was clinical and detached, and she found that a little frightening: this woman was clearly not human. All humans had to feel SOMETHING. Why didn't she? At an age where she hungered for praise and approval, getting none made singing an arduous task for Diana, and it turned into a weekly torture for her for nearly seven years before she was finally allowed to stop. Her mother's piano lessons were similarly frustrating: Diana enjoyed listening to music, but found no appeal in playing it herself. In this she was very much her father's daughter: she enjoyed writing, and found expressing herself through words to be a far greater outlet. In any case, she had far more fun painting with her mother, doing something they both enjoyed, rather than learning an instrument she had no affinity for.
Her mother briefly attempted to teach her the violin after this, but ultimately gave up when she sensed that her daughter wasn't enjoying herself. She wouldn't budge on the singing lessons, however. Her daughter was going to make something of herself, rather than becoming a has-been, wishy-washy, good-for-nothing, incompetent ba—writer. She'd be in her cold grave before she saw that happen. And that was that.
Diana missed out on a lot of things growing up: her education outside of the arts was a disaster, she had no friends to speak of, and with no real control over her empathic ability she became almost afraid of other people and crowded places, but all things considered her childhood was not a bad one, and once the scar of her grandmother's death faded to memory, she was a relatively happy, healthy child, whose natural gifts were nurtured and encouraged to develop in their own way, and who had three strong, loving pillars of support in her mother, father, and grandmother. An idyllic childhood it was not, but it could have been far worse.
The problems came when Diana entered her teenage years. As she grew older she developed a taste for poetry, not having the patience or the creativity to write stories the way her father could – her creativity lay more in the direction of painting and drawing – but finding words more eloquent and versatile than pictures in expressing emotions. This pleased her father, but it did not please her mother. But difficulties or not, she couldn't stay in the family home forever. Her father, using his connections as a writer, enrolled her in an Arts College in Canalave City when she turned eighteen. This marked a turning point in Diana's life, and an especially painful one: she had to learn how to block out the emotions of others, and how to interact with people again. She succeeded in neither venture, and in the end the best she could do was listening to music; focusing on that to the extent of all else. It was an imperfect solution, but it was serviceable.
Unfortunately, Diana dropped out of College after four months. Majoring in English Language to pursue her poetry, she didn't get along with her College Professor, a man who was a respected poet himself. A professional of high standards, he would never allow his personal feelings to interfere with his work, but she could sense his dislike of her, and found it difficult to not allow it to affect her own mood: her every success, and his inability as a professional to fault her conduct or her performance, annoyed him immensely, and that he never showed it only made it more difficult to endure: he was aware that the only reason she was there at all was due to her father's connections, and as far as he was concerned, she didn't deserve to be.
A loner by nature due to her empathic abilities, Diana had no friends at College to ease the tension she felt in classes, and would spend her free time in the most isolated spot she could find on campus grounds, with her music on, trying to ignoring the storm of emotions raging around her and her steadily rising headache. Several times she was overwhelmed by this, and developed a reputation as an oddball, isolating her further. She was, in short, miserable. It did, however, have the unexpected side effect of providing her with an almost insatiable muse: she literally couldn't stop writing.
Diana composed her first poetry anthology, Hush, shortly afterwards, during a period of bleak depression – whilst her parents understood, they couldn't hide their disappointment from her, and with College out of the picture Diana had no idea what to do with her life moving forward. So she completed a small collection of poems she had been working on up to that point, inspired by what she had experience at College, the title of the collection being the first poem she wrote; an ironic allusion to her College Professor. For various reasons, she decided to write under the pseudonym Kathy Roland: Kathy as a shortened version of her middle name, Kathleen, and Roland for her grandfather.
She had no intention of publishing her work at all, really. It was just a girl's fantasy of what might have been had she stuck with her course like she should have. Nice to have it there, for posterity, to show that at least something had come from those months. But the decision was taken out of her hands by father, who shared it with several of his colleagues (including, to her dismay, her former College Professor) and ultimately secured a publishing deal for it. It was by no means a bestseller or an instant classic, but it gathered an unusual amount of attention for the way the poems seemed to so perfectly capture emotions and themes, as well as the mystery surrounding the author herself.
Her father, misguided though he may have been, respected his daughter's privacy and deflected attention away from her: he was interviewed several times on national television about the works and their author, and not once did he even mention her. In any case, who would suspect a College dropout of being able to write something like that? But this was perhaps a mistake, for the mystery endured, and so it didn't simply fade from people's minds. More than one person visited their house after that in an effort to pry the identity of the author from their father, and for a time Diana lived in constant fear that she would be questioned and found out, leading to things she didn't want and was in no way prepared for. There was also a lingering undercurrent of resentment at times from her father, as Hush gathered a cult following and outsold several of his novels. Not all of them, but enough to make Diana afraid and jumpy – was her father really resentful of her success, or was her mind conjuring these emotions by itself? Often, her empathic ability was so subtle that she wasn't even aware she was picking up on someone else's emotions until it was too strong for her to ignore. With her mother so happy at her daughter's success – and there definitely WAS a malicious undercurrent there – was it making her father unhappy?
This event was the primary catalyst for Diana's current writer's block. The expectations that this mysterious new prodigy would write a second anthology soon, the praise from people she didn't even know – she even had a fan-site on the internet! What did the internet know about poetry?! Nothing at all, the way they were breaking down her poems incorrectly! - the harsh criticism she faced from some publications about her writing style, and the tension at home, real or imagined, made it difficult for her to think. Already a perfectionist, she had trouble completing anything at all, and would destroy things she wasn't satisfied with, rather than putting them away to work on later. Unable to capture the same feelings and thoughts that had generated the inspiration for the poem in the first place, she began to grow despondent, and spent more and more time painting instead.
She began to feel a rising sense of guilt; guilt that she hadn't revealed herself, that she had written poems at all, that she was letting her parents and everyone else down by not writing anything new and was instead spending her time on her hobby...the list extended. Although it is likely that it persisted due to her father's remorse at his daughter's reaction; Diana shut herself away in her room for several months after she discovered what he had done, and it took her almost half a year to be able to step outside the house again, for fear of discovery or worse.
The idea to travel was her grandfather's, and whilst Diana was initially opposed to it – the outside world was a chaotic tempest, an unknown monster that consumed the unprepared and assimilated them into societal molds, stripping away individuality in the name of harmony – she eventually came around. Writing had always come so easily to Diana, but in her writing she was more of a conduit for the emotions other people wanted to express but didn't have the words to. It made her an excellent poet, but there was no personal element to her writing: she may experience the emotions, and be able to put them into words, but she didn't truly understand them. What did poetry mean to Diana as a person? This was what she needed to discover, and the only way she was going to do this would be to travel and experience things for herself.
Exactly how she was going to do this was going to have to be up to her...but wasn't that part of the fun? Look at what had come from her first real foray into the outside world, brief though it had been: she'd written a poetry anthology that had made modest sales and gained her quite a few fans. What would happen if she really explored? Her grandfather's final parting gift to her was Muse, her Natu. Her parents didn't take the news particularly well – her father wanted her to come out publicly as the author of the anthology, as he was facing increasing pressure to reveal the author's identity – and her mother wanted to see about featuring her artworks in galleries, having seen some of her more recent paintings...that was more than sufficient to send Diana haring out the door. The last thing she needed was more publicity. Her grandmother had been born in Carrefor Town in Veria, and had spoken fondly of exploring the ruins and catacombs when she was a child. It seemed like a good place to start.
Pokémon
Pokedex Name: Natu
Nickname: Muse
Gender: Female
Ability: Synchronise
Moveset: Teleport, Psychic, Ominous Wind, Wish
Pokedex Name: Vulpix
Nickname: Eirika
Gender: Female
Ability: Flash Fire
Moveset: Flamethrower, Will-O-Wisp, Hex, Extrasensory
Pokedex Name: Vulpix (Alola)
Nickname: Ephraim
Gender: Male
Ability: Snow Cloak
Moveset: Ice Beam, Confuse Ray, Hex, Feint Attack
Pokedex Name: Gible
Nickname: Tiki
Gender: Female
Ability: Sand Veil
Moveset: Sandstorm, Dig, Dragon Claw, Slash
Skills (3/11)
Diversity - 1 point
Dexterity - 1 point, minor
Diana's primary hobby and secondary passion in life is art; specifically painting, although she will typically start with rough sketches before moving on to paints. She is a stickler for precision and details, which - of course - require a level of dexterity, and very steady hands. She is right-handed, but has painted some of her more striking works using only her left hand.
She has a cursive style of handwriting that took her several years to develop to her satisfaction, although it's difficult for most people to read, being - like a lot of things about Diana - a little archaic.
Empathy - 1 point, minor
Diana is a natural empath, and although this is strong enough in her to sense the feelings of both humans and Pokemon, she has barely any control over this, with the effects being random and often more of a hindrance than a help. Her abilities are limited solely to emotions: she cannot sense thoughts, and nor does she have any form of telepathy.
The effects of Diana's empathic abilities varies wildly from moment to moment. She can find herself being inadvertantly affected by other people's emotions, and experiencing them herself: for example, if someone nearby is angry, she will experience mild irritation, and if given sufficient time - or if the emotion is strong enough and sustained enough - will become angry herself.
Self-awareness allows her to control the response to some degree (if she catches it in time) but she will still feel the emotion in question as though it was her own, and her mind will subconsciously attempt to process and justify it to "make sense" of it.
Crowds often give Diana a headache, due to the varying emotions of the people around her, and if everyone around her shares the same emotion, she will experience it to a significantly greater degree: for example, if everyone around her laughed in amusement at a comedy movie, she would collapse into hysterics for several minutes, and would still find herself giggling involuntarily for hours afterwards.
Direct contact with a person or Pokemon focuses Diana's empathic abilities, allowing her to sense with greater clarity what someone is feeling, to the exclusion of others. This makes her more prone to being influenced by that person's emotions, however, and she cannot share her own emotions with others - she cannot, for example, calm an angry person by touching them and projecting a sense of calm towards them.
She has in the past had a calming effect on Pokemon before and tends to get along easier with them, so there may be potential for her to do this if she applies herself.
Diana can, to an extent, drown out emotion from her surroundings by focusing on something else. Unless the emotion in question is particularly strong or someone physically touches her, she will not pick up on emotion from her surroundings if she is completely absorbed in the task at hand. Music is her preferred way to drown out her surroundings - or calm herself down - although it often has to be slightly too loud for comfort.
Other Information
Diana had singing lessons for seven years, and although she hated them, she wasn't completely oblivious to what she was taught. She can carry a tune better than the average person and, whilst she won't be singing opera anytime soon, she is capable of it if she applies herself. She would require significantly more endurance to be able to do this, however - she isn't particularly fit, and would become breathless if she attempted to sing something for a longer period. The talent and knowledge is there, however.
RP Sample
It was around midday when Diana staggered off the boat, wobbling on unsteady legs, face a sickly green. She had read many poems about the sea, and right now, in this moment, she could not understand how anyone could have taken inspiration from such a miserably wretched thing! A body of water that stretched from horizon to horizon, in its own way it was quite beautiful, and certainly a powerful force to be respected...but never to be traversed. Never again. Next time, she'd fly over, or take a bus, or a train, or anything that didn't turn her stomach inside out...it was crude, but that was the most accurate descriptor her mind could come up with at that present moment. Glaring at the boat – and the sea – one final time, she turned her back on both...and found herself face to face with a far greater monster. Caravella City. Not her destination, but rather the beginning of her journey.
Perched on Diana's shoulder and hidden from view by her hair, Muse slept on, tiny claws digging into the bare skin of her shoulder like tiny anchors, keeping the little bird in place. It made Diana want to reach up and scratch her shoulder in irritation – never mind anchors, those claws were like thorns! She was going to have to trim them or one of these days they'd draw blood - but she resisted the temptation, content to allow her partner Pokemon to sleep on, at least for the moment. A vague sense of peace suffused her being, contradicting the raging headache she felt building in her temples as the city loomed before her, smothering her in shadows as if seeking to crush her from existence.
It was not a comforting thought. How did people stand being in these places? Beneath the freshness of the sea air, the acrid tang of pollution crawled its way into Diana's nostrils as a hot, fetid gust of air swept over her, seeping down her throat and making her want to spit, a filthy habit she normally never approved of. The noise of the traffic, and the angry buzz of people going about their daily lives, assaulted her ears with the force of a battering ram, and she reflexively reached into her coat pocket for her MP3 player to drown it out, knowing even as she did that it was an exercise in futility. How could she possibly hope to withstand the force of the city, if she was overwhelmed by the fringes of it on this pier? The noise, the crowds, the feelings...these things would dig a million tiny claws into her brain and shred it to nothingness. This city, it would consume her, as it had consumed so many others. It would--
Muse's claws dug sharply into her shoulder suddenly, steadying her, and she realised with a start that her partner was awake, had perhaps been awake all this time. A tiny ball of calm, she seemed to somehow provide the reassurance and stability, the anchor, that Diana needed. In a strange way, it reminded her of her grandfather, and the nights of her youth spent crying, unable to stand the sensations that assaulted her. It was surprising how much having a Pokemon comforted her, and she felt a sudden rush of gratitude, to both her grandfather and Muse.
What had been more surprising was that she had found two more Pokeballs in her bag: one from her father, and the other from her mother. Both had contained a Vulpix, which had made her laugh aloud, attracting the curious stares of several passengers on the boat, as it had been some time before her laughter subsided, to be replaced by an amused contentment, the first time she had felt that since setting out. Both of her parents, who had done their utmost to dissuade her from this very course of action, had clearly foreseen that she was going to leave without their permission – something even Diana herself hadn't been certain of until she was out the door! - and had left her a Pokemon...and it had been the same Pokemon. If she hadn't of known better, Diana would have thought her parents had collaborated on this and maybe even conspired with her grandfather to get her on this journey, but that was impossible...wasn't it?
Squaring her shoulders – earning an indignant chirp from Muse as she was jostled about – Diana took a deep breath and made her way off the docks, and into the city proper. In, and out. She only needed to pass through the place, and then she would be back in open countryside, with only her own thoughts and feelings for company. Perhaps she would even be able to make a few sketches of the landscape; she had not been able to do much of anything other than feel sorry for herself on the boat. A nasty surprise, but hopefully it would be the only one on this journey. It was unlikely, but hope was ever a presence, laughing in delight even as it was crushed underfoot by the merciless heel of reality...
OOC Information
OOC Name: Dawn
Player Pronouns: they/them
Face Claim: [b]Persona[/b], Futaba Sakura as [i]Wake, Diana[/i]
Continuity: Original
Starter Items:
Civilian
5 PokeBalls, 2 Move Techs, 1 Big Nugget (100 muns)
made by Wolf of GS